Saturday, 11 A.M.
“BONJOUR.” AIMÉE SMILED at the stocky man puffing on a hookah in the reception cubicle in the hotel around the corner from the luggage store. “You’re Aram?”
He nodded and inhaled, the water bubbling. He exhaled a long plume of smoke, scrutinizing her with his close-set brown eyes through the haze. Fruit notes laced the thick tobacco aroma. Not unpleasant, but it would cling to her skin, her clothes.
Aram smiled back, his teeth gleaming. “May I help you, Mademoiselle?” About five-foot-eight. Brown, wavy hair; a sparse beard and thick jowls. Familiar, but from where?
“He’s expensive, your dentiste?”
“Not when his cousin eats my couscous every night on his security guard break.”
Her ears perked up. Nice gig. “And that’s where?”
Aram scratched his beard. “Vous êtes du type curieux, non? Lots of your kind sniffing around here.”
She threw up her hands. “Can’t hide anything from you, Aram.” She pushed her détective privé card across the gouged counter. “Like it says, I work privately.”
Aimée had a business to run, and a missing Chinese woman to find before her partner went off the deep end. Worse, she was now caught up in helping the little old woman, Pascal’s great-aunt, to find justice. Those eyes. She shouldn’t have looked at his eyes.
“I shouldn’t say this, client privilege, et cetera,” she said, “but I think you’ve noticed him, Monsieur Friant. He favors velvet-collared Burberry overcoats. About this tall.” She raised her arm to her waist.
“A lot of people walk by here,” he said, pushing the hookah to the back of the office. “And if I have?”
“Confidential, of course, but a matter of the heart.” She gave a little sigh. “His girlfriend worked in the nearby luggage shop. She’s disappeared.”
He’d understand that.
“But that didn’t come from me,” she said. “Alors, I’m knocking on doors here. No one talks to me. Word is you’re connected. I’m prepared to pay.”
Aram grinned a white smile. He’d taken the bait. She reached for her wallet.
“This? You think I believe your little card? Cheap trick.”
Her hand froze in her bag.
“See, I have nice cards, too, like three-star hotels. Un mec prints them for me around the corner.” He fluttered his ringed hand, a dismissive wave. “Good luck knocking on doors, Mademoiselle.”
But she remembered now where she’d seen him before—the stark hospital emergency room, her cousin Sebastien’s faint pulse when he almost OD’d, the small-time dealers who informed for immunity. Aram. Only his teeth hadn’t been so white then.
“Now I wouldn’t like to crimp your drug trade,” she said, pulling out her wallet, “by ruining your evening delivery schedule and alerting the flics. Or tell my RG contact how you finance your cheap couscous.” She stared hard into his face. “But I could.”
He returned her stare, his dark eyes never leaving hers. The wall clock above the counter ticked. The sizzle of something frying came from the back window, which overlooked a shoebox courtyard and kitchen.
“Big talk, Mademoiselle. You’ve got nothing.”
“Want to chance it?” She leaned forward.
“I run a hotel,” he said.
“Once a dealer, always a dealer. But I should thank you,” she said. “No hard feelings. Best thing that could have happened to my cousin Sebastien, your old client. You ended him up in rehab. Six years now and he’s straight, runs his own business. He’s getting married, too.” She shrugged. “Zut, Aram, your sideline doesn’t interest me. It’s better we help each other.”
“Go bother someone else, Mademoiselle.”
“My client doesn’t trust the flics,” she said. “I don’t blame him. But the flics won’t leave Chinatown alone after last night’s murder.” She watched his eyelids flicker. “You know how set in their ways they get. One-track focus. Don’t you want them out of your soup?”
“So you think I know who killed him?”
“Do you?”
He shook his head. “Might have, as I told the flics, if I’d been working that day. Instead I had front-row seats.” He pointed to the Palais des Sports boxing match poster on the wall: The Mad Moroccan vs. Steel Punk. “Bought my tickets six months ago.”
“And who won?” She would check.
“The Mad Moroccan delivered.”
“I need to find Meizi Wu,” Aimée said. “I think she knows what happened.”
“Who?” His gaze strayed to her wallet.
Don’t play with me, she wanted to say. She hoped she’d hooked him and just needed to reel him in.
“As I said, from the luggage store.” She paused. “She may use another name.”
“No one is who they say they are, Mademoiselle.”
She nodded. “True. About five feet tall, black ponytail.”
“Generic. Look on the street. Describes a good quarter of them.”
She pulled her wallet back. “I’ve got more details. First I need to know if you’re interested.”
He met her gaze. “Five hundred francs interested.”
Expensive.
“Two fifty up front,” she said, “the rest when I find her.”
“I can’t guarantee …”
Aimée slid the francs over the counter. “She speaks good French.”
“Narrows it,” he said, pocketing the francs.
“She’s part of Ching Wao’s cleaning operation in the thirteenth arrondissement,” she said.
“Ching Wao’s gone. Phfft.” He opened his palm.
“Tell me something I don’t know, Aram. When I got there, his tea was still warm.”
A gleam of admiration flashed in Aram’s eyes. “Bon, he pulled girls from several sweatshops. Mixed and matched. For another hundred, there’s a list for you.”
“And a way in?”
“That’s extra.”